What You Know About the Yellow Fever?

Yellow fever is one of the common diseases in South American continent. This blog strives to highlight the essential nature of yellow fever vaccines by exploring some recent news and updates. A combination of climate change, urbanisation, and rise in international air travel have accelerated the global spread of Yellow Fever.

There is no specific antiviral therapy exists for Yellow Fever, but the infection can be prevented with a right vaccine received from any NHS Pharmacy in Teddington. Currently, there a global vaccine shortage that has made managing the disease a problem. As responsible travellers, we have an essential role to play in preventing the Yellow Fever to spread.

Unvaccinated Travellers and Spread of the Yellow FeverUnvaccinated travellers who get infected with Yellow Fever can spread the disease by travelling from a Yellow Fever prone area to a region which is not infected but has the carrier mosquitoes. Mosquitoes can get the virus after feeding on Yellow Fever infected humans or monkeys. Then, they can spread the virus to others they feed on, causing an outbreak. In the endemic regions, the virus is typically held in forested as well as rural areas, where mosquitoes transmit the virus to the monkeys and occasionally to the humans. When these infected individuals travel from remote areas to densely populated areas, large epidemics can happen.

Changes to the International Certificate of VaccinationAs of 2016, the World Health Organization(WHO) amended their current guidelines to state that one dose of Yellow Fever vaccine offers proper protective immunity for life. As such, all the pre-existing and latest Yellow Fever Vaccine Certificates are now considered valid for life and countries can no longer need the travellers to be re-vaccinated or get a booster dose to qualify for entry.